This watchdog blog, by journalist Norman Oder, offers analysis, commentary, and reportage about the $4.9 billion project to build the Barclays Center arena and 16 high-rise buildings at a crucial site in Brooklyn. Dubbed Atlantic Yards by developer Forest City Ratner in 2003, it was rebranded Pacific Park in 2014 after the Chinese government-owned Greenland Group bought a 70% stake in 15 towers. New York State still calls it Atlantic Yards. Contact: AtlanticYardsReport[at]hotmail.com

Sunday, June 28, 2009

It was last December when the New York Observer broke the news that Forest City Ratner was seeking additional direct and indirect subsidies, the latter including a delay in paying the Metropolitan Transportation Authority the $100 million it pledged to pay for the Vanderbilt Yard.

This week, after 48 hours after the deal surfaced, the MTA approved it.

Shortly after the project was announced, in January 2004, Bloomberg, asked about government support for the project, claimed:Fundamentally, the answer to your question is: this will be done with private money, and any city monies of any meaningful size will be debt issues financed by the extra tax revenues that come from this. So, we’re not going to have to divert money from education, or police or fire or any other part of the city to do this. No. It is private money in that sense.

Along with "police" and "fire," he might have mentioned "mass transit."